the one book that supplied me with another world at a time when it was desperately needed'By sally tarbox on 25 April 2012Format: PaperbackSet in civil war on the island of Bougainville (near Papua New Guinea), this book is narrated by 14 year old Matilda. At first she is only affected by the mass exodus of her teachers...until local eccentric Mr Watts steps in as a volunteer. The only white man left, he focusses his students' minds on Dickens' 'Great Expectations' and invites their parents to share what they know of life. As the fighting starts to touch the village, Mr Watts' storytelling, based around Great Expectations, temporarily- and improbably- holds off the soldiers. But Matilda has to face dark times...I really enjoyed the ending of the book and thought Jones brought it together in a satisfactory way. But the main body of the book failed to grab me particularly. Maybe it would be better advertised as a novel for young adults. I didn't find Matilda at all convincing and even when certain events happened to her I didn't experience the jolt I would have expected. ( )

A short but very powerful book, about the power of literature to transcend the horrors of humanity. Mr Watts brings education to a remote part of Bougainville in the middle of the war there (probably the most horrible conflict in the Pacific since WW2, with 15-20,000 killed of a population of less than a quarter million). Pip from Great Expectations becomes a focal cultural reference point for Matilda and her neighbours, before war comes and destroys their world. After the dust has settled, Matilda finds out where Mr Watts actually came from; and her memories of him are not tarnished but enhanced as a result. It's a grim read in places, but ultimately encouraging. ( )

This book took me by surprise. A truly original storyline with believable characters, it lulls the reader into a false sense of security and then knocks them for six. I love stories that are unpredictable and this one certainly was! ( )

"...you cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames." (page 155)"

"A Prayer was like a tickle. Sooner or later God would have to look down to see what was tickling his bum."

I do not know what you are supposed to do with memories likes these. It feels wrong to want to forget. Perhaps this is why we write these things down, so we can move on."

Wikipedia in English (1)

'You cannot pretend to read a book. Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing. A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper is in flames.'

Bougainville. 1991. A small village on a lush tropical island in the South Pacific. Eighty-six days have passed since Matilda's last day of school as, quietly, war is encroaching from the other end of the island.

When the villagers' safe, predictable lives come to a halt, Bougainville's children are surprised to find the island's only white man, a recluse, re-opening the school. Pop Eye, aka Mr Watts, explains he will introduce the children to Mr Dickens. Matilda and the others think a foreigner is coming to the island and prepare a list of much needed items. They are shocked to discover their acquaintance with Mr Dickens will be through Mr Watts' inspiring reading of Great Expectations.

But on an island at war, the power of fiction has dangerous consequences. Imagination and beliefs are challenged by guns. Mister Pip is an unforgettable tale of survival by story; a dazzling piece of writing that lives long in the mind after the last page is finished.

In a novel that is at once intense, beautiful, and fablelike, Lloyd Jones weaves a transcendent story that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the power of narrative to transform our lives.

On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with most everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind: the eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dickens’s classic Great Expectations.

So begins this rare, original story about the abiding strength that imagination, once ignited, can provide. As artillery echoes in the mountains, thirteen-year-old Matilda and her peers are riveted by the adventures of a young orphan named Pip in a city called London, a city whose contours soon become more real than their own blighted landscape. As Mr. Watts says, “A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe.” Soon come the rest of the villagers, initially threatened, finally inspired to share tales of their own that bring alive the rich mythology of their past. But in a ravaged place where even children are forced to live by their wits and daily survival is the only objective, imagination can be a dangerous thing.

On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, on which survival is a daily struggle, eccentric Mr. Watts, the only white man left after the other teachers flee, spends his day reading to the local children from Charles Dickens' classic Great Expectations.… (more)